It was sometime after I had been born of God that I learned to draw the line between confessing my sins and reckoning myself dead. I used to search and search my own heart in the presence of the Lord, and bring to light everything that I could think of that I had thought, or said, or done amiss; own it all to Him, and rest upon His promise” If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and “to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:99If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)). Had I stopped there all would have been well, but still feeling the root of evil within, though I could remember no more offenses, I used to own it, too, before the Lord in all its vileness; and a sad trouble and constant source of annoyance it was to me, seeing that it never changed, and therefore always kept me on my knees confessing it.
At length the truth dawned on me that I was dead: that I had died at the cross (Rom. 6:66Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. (Romans 6:6); Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20); Col. 2:2020Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Colossians 2:20)), and that therefore all I had got to do was to think God’s thoughts about myself, and hold, reckon, or account myself to be dead before Him.
Oh! what rest this was to my soul. Instead of probing and probing at this vile, this incorrigible heart, this fruitful source of iniquity, to look upon it as a dead thing that had no existence before God, and therefore no existence before me.
I remembered that the Israelites “saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore,” but I could not recollect that they ever even turned the bodies over to make assurance doubly sure; so I determined to follow their example, and to look upon myself as one that had died at the cross with Jesus, and had been consigned with Him to the tomb, where I was resolved I would lie in faith until the Lord Himself should come to change my vile body into the likeness of His glorious body.
The tomb of Jesus, then, is my Family Vault. There I, as I am by nature, repose, and the key is turned in the lock! I grant you, that ever and anon (for “ we all often offend”) there arises a fetid odor, telling of corruption within, and reminding me that faith must not go to sleep, but ever be on the watch lest the walls of this family vault should become impaired, and let still fouler vapors out; but I have a precious corrective for this my new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness, “not I” “but Christ,” who “liveth in me” (Gal 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)), in whom I stand before God, and walk before the world, with its sweet breath soon purifies the tainted atmosphere, telling out to the Lord, to whom the effluvia has been more offensive than to any, the failure; and then rejoicing in the fact that He has been faithful to His word, forgiven the sin, and cleansed away the unrighteousness. This is not realization but reckoning; but, precisely in proportion as I reckon, realization follows.
What a place we have, to be sure! To walk through the world yielding ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.